"Malaprop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to deal with words of which only half the meaning is understood, or half the sound heard. Mrs. Gamp's 'aperiently so'—and the 'undermined' with primal sense of undermine, of—I forget which gossip, in the Mill on the Floss, are master- and mistress-pieces in this latter kind. Mrs. Malaprop's 'allegories on the banks of the Nile' are in a somewhat higher order of mistake: Miss Tabitha Bramble's ignorance is vulgarised by her selfishness, and Winifred Jenkins' by her conceit. The 'wot' of Noah Claypole, and the other degradations ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... when they were startled by a solemn request for 'more pork.' The officer in command of the piquet, who had only very recently arrived in the country, ordered no talking in the ranks, which was immediately replied to by another demand, distinctly enunciated, for 'more pork.' So malaprop a remark produced a titter along the ranks, which roused the irate officer to the necessity of having his commands obeyed, and he accordingly threatened to put the next person under arrest who dared make ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... begins with hydro- from the Greek word for water. None of them seem to be very old, but probably 'hydraulic' began life with a short y. Surely Mrs. Malaprop, when she meant 'hysterics' and said 'hydrostatics', must have used the short y. Of course 'hydra' which comes from the same ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... champagne luncheon failed to attract more than one out of twenty-four members of the Hygienic Congress invited to test the merits of sewage-farms by ocular—or should we say nasal?—demonstration. Perhaps the missing three-and-twenty thought that in this case, at least, Mrs. MALAPROP would be both correct and pertinent in saying ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... Mrs. Malaprop, and a termagant. "Everything must be her way or there's no getting any peace." She greatly frequents the minor theatres, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... call you a little Uncle Maurice instead,' said Aunt Jane. 'How things come round! Perhaps you would not believe, Gill, that Aunt Ada was once in a scrape, when she was our Mrs. Malaprop, for applying that same epithet ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... food, they consider difficult of digestion; and even for their own La Place there is no place at Vichy! Every unlucky headache contracted here, is placed to the account of thinking in the bath. If Dr P—— suspects any of his patients of thinking, he asks them, like Mrs Malaprop, "what business they have to think?" "Vous etes venu ici pour prendre les eaux, et pour vous desennuyer, non pas pour penser! Que le Diable emporte la Pensee!" And so ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various |
